Smythe v. New Orleans Canal & Banking Co.

• Decision Date: 23 April 1888
• Citation: 34 F. 825
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana
• Parties: SMYTHE v. NEW ORLEANS CANAL & BANKING CO. et al.

34 F. 825

SMYTHE v. NEW ORLEANS CANAL & BANKING CO. et al.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Louisiana.

April 23, 1888

J. Ad Rozier and J. Ward Gurley, Jr., for complainant.

H. C Miller and W. S. Finney, for the New Orleans Canal & Banking Co.

Farrar & Kruttschnitt, Girault Farrar, S. L. Gilmore, G. A. Breaux Braughn, Buck, Dinkelspiel & Hart, and G. L. Bright, for other defendants.

PARDEE and BILLINGS, JJ.

The suit is one to recover real estate, and the question to be considered is whether it is within the equity jurisdiction of the court. The complainant claims 2,295 acres of swamp lands in the south-eastern land district of Louisiana. He alleges patents from the United States and the state of Louisiana for 1,495 acres, and for the remaining 800 acres he alleges a purchase from the state of Louisiana, the whole being purchased from the state of Louisiana over one year after the completion and approval of the United States official survey by the surveyor general, and the consequent listing of the said lands as swamp lands inuring to the state of Louisiana under acts of congress approved March 2, 1849, and September 28, 1850 granting swamp lands to the state of Louisiana. There is no question but that the complainant's title as to 1,495 acres is purely legal. As to the 800 acres there may be some doubt, but it arises because the bill is not sufficiently explicit. The purchase from the state of Louisiana is alleged to be shown by a certificate of purchase. If the state law authorizes a sale, and, in the absence of patents from the United States, the issuance of a certificate of purchase,-- which does not appear by the bill,-- then complainant's title to the 800 acres is also a complete legal title. See Wright v. Roseberry, 121 U.S. 517, 7 S.Ct. 985. As to the effect of a receiver's certificate of purchase of land from the state of Louisiana, and as to whether it translates the title, see Doles v. Cockrell, 10 La.Ann. 540. In argument on this demurrer counsel for complainant claimed for him a legal title; and in fact, from the averments of the bill, we think it sufficiently appears that the title of the complainant is a legal title, and whether or not it is as against the defendants a valid title depends entirely upon whether those under whom the defendants claim had a sufficient title before the United States acquired the territory of Orleans. The complainant can in no proper sense be said to have a standing before the court on account of the equitable nature of his title. The bill is not one for discovery, because it is not so framed, and, if it were, it would be demurrable on the ground that a bill of discovery will not lie to compel the production of titles under which the complainant does not claim, and which are not necessary to his title. 2 Story, Eq.Jur. §§ 1489, 1490; 1 Pom.Eq.Jur. § 201. It cannot be said that the jurisdiction in equity is necessary to prevent a multiplicity of suits, for by the bill it does not appear that any more suits at law will be necessary to vindicate the complainant's rights than in equity. As one suit in equity brings all the defendants before the court, so it may at law. In actions of ejectment all persons in possession of the land are made defendants. See Dicey, Parties, marg. pp. 494, 495; Jackson v. Woods, 5 Johns. 278; Jackson v. Andrews, 7 Wend. 152. In the petitory action in Louisiana all persons in possession of the land in controversy, and claiming under same common title, may be...